Word
Vem har håret utsläppt och benan i mitten?
Meaning
Who has their hair loose and the parting in the middle?
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Vem har håret utsläppt och benan i mitten?
Why is it "utsläppt" instead of "släppt ut"?
Utsläppt is a participial adjective describing the state of the hair, formed from the phrasal verb att släppa ut (to let out/let down). In Swedish, when you turn a phrasal verb into a participial adjective, the particle (in this case, ut) must be prefixed to the front of the verb to form a single word.
The English translation says "their hair", but the Swedish sentence uses "håret" (the hair). Where is the possessive pronoun?
This is a common Swedish pattern you've likely seen before: when referring to body parts, clothing, or personal features where the "owner" is obvious from the context, Swedish uses the definite article (håret, benan) rather than a possessive pronoun (sitt, deras, etc.).
Why doesn't "utsläppt" take a definite "-a" ending to match "håret"?
Even though håret is in the definite form, utsläppt is being used as a predicative complement here (describing how the person "has" their hair), rather than an attributive adjective directly attached to the noun. If you were saying "the loose hair", it would be det utsläppta håret, but here it functions more like "has the hair [in a state of being] loose".
What is the base form of "benan", and how is it used?